The Learned Ones: Nahua Intellectuals in Postconquest Mexico

Chapter 2. Writing Tlaxcalan Memories that Matter - Don Juan Buenaventura Zapata y Mendoza

63 chapter 2 Writing Tlaxcalan Memories that Matter Don Juan Buenaventura Zapata y Mendoza Writing about the past is a highly selective task, one of remembering but also of forgetting (or silencing, in the words of Michel-Rolph Trouillot ).1 A written record of the social memory of a people, as ethnohistorian Stephanie Wood has argued, is similar to the production of an image, as it “is no less a product of careful selection, assemblage, and persuasive presentation.”2 The book you hold in your hands is the result of this very process—I have chosen to remember Nahua writings, a version of the past that has been silenced elsewhere. In doing so, I have necessarily omitted other stories to serve my particular purpose. In short, writing about the past implies assembling and recording memories that matter to the writer and to his/her intended audience. Such was the task that occupied seventeenth-century Nahua noble and statesman don Juan Buenaventura Zapata y Mendoza, the author/ compiler of one of the richest extant Nahuatl-language historical annals of the altepetl (city/state) of Tlaxcala.3 The stories brought together would ensure that his descendants knew where they had come from and what their rights were as Tlaxcalan people. On the latter, his writing provides a window into the world of indigenous “negotiation within domination” and paints a dynamic picture of how Tlaxcalan elites—the embodiment of the altepetl—shaped and responded to the rapidly changing social and political landscape of colonial Mexico.4 64 · Chapter 2 Commonly referred to as Historia cronológica de la noble ciudad de Tlaxcala, Zapata’s manuscript contains, as with other examples of Nahua annals, a yearly record of the altepetl territorial and political disputes, transfers of power, public works, and descriptions of natural/climatic phenomena .5 Yet beyond these expected topics, our protagonist also left us with a detailed account of the cabildo’s political activities during the seventeenth century, offering a vivid firsthand record of the Tlaxcalan elites’ nuanced understanding of the relationships among colonial politics, religion, and the law. Specifically, Zapata’s work details how Tlaxcalan elites promoted their political authority and rights and presents an image of skillful leadership in the challenging colonial context. Events gleaned from Zapata’s manuscript exemplify what can be considered the discursive pillars of Tlaxcalan authority and rights during the seventeenth century: the assertion of pre-Hispanic noble lineage, loyalty to the Crown (first as military allies and later as administrators), and finally, faithful conversion to the Catholic religion. Records of the public performances found in Zapata’s annals show each of the three discursive pillars deployed as critical tools in the affirmation and defense of the elite Tlaxcalan cabildo members’ right (and by extension that of their indigenous subjects) to continue to enjoy their separate, privileged status established in the earliest days of European conquest and colonization.6 Presently housed at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris, Zapata’s manuscript consists of 120 folios of Nahuatl alphabetic text.7 The first 5 folios are a migration story entitled “Origen de la nación tlaxcalteca” (“The Origin of the Tlaxcalan Nation”), presumably copied from a preHispanic document.8 The remaining folios narrate a year-by-year account of events important to the Tlaxcalan confederation since its origins in 1310 through 1692, which had been compiled and edited from earlier texts (oral, pictorial, or alphabetic) and expanded upon by Zapata to include new histories accumulated and/or witnessed during his lifetime. He can rightly be called the primary editor of the manuscript as we see it today, as well as the “first author” of a large portion of the entries. That said, we also know that he did not have the final word. There were at least two additional hands involved in the text, both of whom appear to have taken over after Zapata’s death. The first is his son, who very briefly picked up his father’s work in 1691. The second is that of don Manuel de los Santos y Salazar, a family friend (and indigenous Franciscan priest) who more than likely acquired the manuscript from Zapata’s son. Santos y Salazar added extensive marginalia and glosses, in both Spanish and in Nahuatl, as well as cover pages to the document.9 Before moving to a closer examination Writing Tlaxcalan Memories that Matter · 65 of Zapata’s intellectual legacy to...